Chapter 128: The Choice I Wasn’t Ready to Make

Chapter 128: Chapter 128: The Choice I Wasn’t Ready to Make

Monday morning arrived with a heavy, suffocating silence.

Audrey woke up early, but Alexander was already awake. He was in the kitchen, dressed for work, pouring two cups of coffee. Their morning routine was completely intact. He handed her a mug. He asked if she slept well. She said yes.

Everything looked entirely normal. But everything had changed.

Neither of them mentioned the question he had asked on Saturday night. The question was just sitting there, taking up all the air in the room.

Audrey held her warm mug and watched him. He was still kind to her. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t slam any cabinet doors. But he wasn’t reaching for her the way he normally did.

There was no hand on her waist when he walked past her. There was no casual teasing about her messy morning hair.

When it was time for him to leave, he didn’t lean in for a kiss.

He just paused at the front door and looked at her.

"I’ll see you tonight," Alexander said quietly.

Audrey nodded. "Have a good day at work."

She wanted to say something else. She wanted to bridge the massive gap between them. But she didn’t.

He walked out, and the apartment went totally silent. The polite distance almost made it worse. It hurt so much more than open anger.

By ten o’clock, the newsroom was completely chaotic.

Audrey was sitting at her desk, staring blankly at a digital folder. She was supposed to be preparing the next stage of the Calloway investigative project, but the words were just swimming on the screen.

Ben walked over and dropped a printed schedule on her desk.

"You okay, Ellis?" Ben asked, tilting his head. "You’ve been staring at the same page for twenty minutes."

Audrey quickly grabbed her mouse and clicked out of the document.

"I’m fine," Audrey lied smoothly. "Just planning my questions."

Ben didn’t believe her for a second. He knew her too well. But he also knew when to back off. He tapped the printed schedule he had just put down.

"The Chief cleared your schedule for tomorrow morning," Ben said. "Your next on-site interview is locked in."

Ben walked away. Audrey looked down at the page.

Her stomach completely tightened into a hard knot.

Tuesday. 10:00 AM. Mason Calloway.

The next interview was rapidly approaching. She stared at his printed name. She realized, with a sinking feeling in her chest, that she absolutely couldn’t keep pretending Mason was simply another subject. Not when Alexander knew exactly who he was.

Across the city, Mason arrived at the Calloway Football Group headquarters.

He walked into his massive, glass-walled office and took off his suit jacket. His young assistant immediately followed him inside, holding a digital tablet.

"Good morning, Mr. Calloway," the assistant said briskly. "I have the finalized schedule for tomorrow’s investigative piece. Miss Ellis will be here at ten."

The assistant paused. He looked at Mason carefully.

"Since the project is shifting toward the charity funding," the assistant offered politely, "would you like me to move this interview to the Chief Financial Officer? You don’t necessarily have to take this one yourself."

Mason stopped organizing the files on his desk.

He looked down at his own copy of the schedule. He stared at Audrey’s name for a long moment.

"No," Mason said immediately.

He paused, his jaw tightening slightly.

"Keep it exactly as scheduled," Mason instructed.

He didn’t want to run from Audrey. He had spent seven years running, and he wasn’t going to do it again. But he also didn’t want to actively interfere with her relationship. He would give her the space she asked for, but he absolutely refused to hide from her.

That evening, the apartment was dark when Alexander unlocked the door.

He had wrapped up filming much earlier than Audrey expected. He walked into the living room and found her sitting on the couch. The television wasn’t on. She was just sitting in the quiet, holding a throw pillow against her chest.

Alexander took off his coat. For a few seconds, neither of them said a single word.

He walked over and sat down on the opposite end of the couch.

"Have you thought about my question?" Alexander asked softly.

Audrey knew exactly which one he meant. Did you love him more than you love me?

She swallowed hard. "Yes."

"And?" Alexander asked.

Audrey struggled. She looked at his kind, patient face. She desperately didn’t want to lie to him, but she didn’t know how to give him an honest answer that wouldn’t completely break his heart.

Finally, she let out a shaky breath.

"I don’t know," Audrey whispered.

Alexander looked down at his hands. He had probably hoped for something else. He had probably prayed she would just say no.

But he didn’t explode. He didn’t yell.

Instead, he looked back up at her and asked a much harder question.

"Do you want to know?" Alexander asked.

Audrey frowned in confusion. "Know what?"

"Whether you still love him," Alexander clarified, his voice incredibly steady.

Audrey felt a hot tear prick the corner of her eye.

"I don’t know if what I feel for him is the same love from college," Audrey admitted, her voice trembling. "Maybe it is. Maybe it’s just heavy nostalgia. Maybe it’s just unfinished feelings because we never actually said goodbye."

She looked at her hands, her fingers twisting nervously together.

"Maybe seeing him again just reopened something I genuinely thought was dead," Audrey cried quietly. "But I know one thing, Alexander. I can’t honestly sit here and tell you that he means absolutely nothing to me."

Alexander quietly absorbed her words. He didn’t flinch, but the pain in his eyes was entirely undeniable.

"And what am I supposed to do with that?" Alexander asked softly.

Audrey had absolutely no answer.

Alexander leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. This was the most emotional he had been since she got back from Europe. He wasn’t angry. He was just deeply, profoundly hurt.

"You know what the worst part is, Audrey?" Alexander asked, his voice cracking slightly. "It isn’t Mason. It isn’t the fact that he’s a billionaire, or that he’s successful."

He looked directly into her eyes.

"The worst part is discovering that the person I thought I knew completely had an entire love story before me that still has a permanent place in her heart," Alexander said. "You kept a massive part of yourself entirely hidden."

"I never wanted to hide him from you," Audrey pleaded, wiping a tear from her cheek.

"But you did," Alexander responded instantly.

The heavy truth of that statement landed right in the center of the room. Audrey realized he was right. She never deliberately lied about Mason’s existence, but she had deliberately kept that part of herself completely locked away.

Alexander took a slow, deep breath.

"Did you kiss him?" Alexander finally asked.

Audrey went completely silent. She couldn’t speak.

That silence was more than enough of an answer.

Alexander closed his eyes briefly. He let out a slow, painful breath. He didn’t yell. He didn’t call her names. He didn’t throw anything.

He simply opened his eyes and asked, "Did he kiss you?"

"It wasn’t like that," Audrey whispered, her chest aching.

Alexander looked at her.

"Then tell me what it was like," he challenged quietly.

Audrey couldn’t.

She couldn’t tell him that she had closed the distance. She couldn’t tell him how desperate it felt. Because she knew explaining the kiss would mean admitting exactly how much it had completely affected her.

Alexander stared at her for a long moment. Then, he slowly stood up from the couch.

"I don’t need you to choose tonight," Alexander said.

Audrey looked up at him through her tears.

"But I need you to stop pretending nothing happened," Alexander continued firmly.

He looked down at her. He loved her entirely, but he respected himself too much to play a game.

"I love you, Audrey," Alexander said quietly. "But I will not become the man standing right beside you while you secretly wonder what your life with Mason would have been like."

He turned toward the stairs.

"If you need to figure out what you want, figure it out," Alexander told her. "Just don’t make me live inside the uncertainty with you."

It was his very first real boundary.

Alexander walked upstairs.

Audrey stayed alone in the dark living room.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone. The screen lit up, showing two different notifications right in front of her.

The first was a text message from Alexander that he had just sent from the bedroom.

Let me know when you’re coming upstairs.

The second was her calendar notification for tomorrow morning.

Mason Calloway, Tuesday, 10:00 AM.

Audrey stared at both names, Alexander and

Mason.

One represented the life she had carefully built.

The other represented the life she had once lost.

She didn’t type a message to Mason.

She didn’t go upstairs to comfort Alexander.

Instead, she slowly opened the digital interview file.

The questions she’d prepared stared back at her.

They were ordinary questions for a completely ordinary interview.

Audrey stared at Mason’s name at the top of the document.

Then she closed the file.

Tomorrow, she would sit across from him again.

She would have to look at the man she once loved while knowing that another man was waiting for her at home.

And for the first time, Audrey understood that she couldn’t keep both worlds suspended forever.

Eventually, she would have to choose.

She just wasn’t ready to know which one.